Free Republic

Valerie Gatto does not want to talk about abortion. That’s probably prudent, inasmuch as she very much desires to be the next Miss USA, and contestants in that pageant are expected to have ruthlessly anodyne interests along the lines of reading children’s literature to blind dolphins. But she is admirably direct, even bracing, about the aspect of her life that intersects that troublesome issue: She was conceived when her mother, a teenager at the time, was attacked on the streets of Pittsburgh and raped at knifepoint. Asked by a radio interviewer about whether her mother had considered abortion, Miss Gatto...

A college student learnt a painful lesson after he was given eight strokes of the rotan in public as punishment for raping a teenager. Ainur Asyriq Aizamuddin, 19, was whipped with a light rotan (the type for punishing white collar criminals) inside the Ampang Sessions courtroom in front of a doctor, his parents and a group of observers. Ainur was seen flinching each time the policeman readied to whip him. The convicted rapist was also heard groaning in pain and appeared to be holding back tears after the fifth strike. Judge Manira Mohd Nor also ordered Ainur to serve three...

Amanda Kijera was on a humanitarian trip to Haiti, when she was violently raped by a black man. The act was both coincidental and devastating, as Kijera was actually in Haiti to dispel the “myths” that violence against women on the island was overstated by women’s rights organizations. The intention of Kijera’s trip was to push back on the portrayal of black men as “savages” in the media. Her hope was that she would eliminate misconceptions and push back against common views imposed by “the man.” However, Kijera’s trip took a turn for the worse when one of the men...

The woman representing Pennsylvania in the Miss USA 2014 pageant has opened up about how she was conceived when her mother was raped at knifepoint. Valerie Gatto, 24, revealed to Today.com that a man dressed in black attacked her mother when she was just 19, forcing himself upon her behind a building until a passing car spooked him, and she managed to run away. Rather than let the tragic story define her, Valerie has decided to use it as a platform to help educate women about sexual assault. 'I believe God put me here for a reason,' she said. 'To...

Indian police have arrested one man and are looking for four other suspects after two teenage girls were gang-raped and then hanged from a tree in a village in the northern state of Uttar Pradesh, police said on Thursday. The two cousins, who were from a low-caste Dalit community and aged 14 and 15, went missing from their village home in Uttar Pradesh's Budaun district when they went out to go to the toilet on Tuesday evening. The following morning, villagers found the bodies of the two teenagers hanging from a mango tree in a nearby orchard. "We have registered...

ELLIJAY — Three former Calhoun High students were charged Wednesday with aggravated sexual battery and underage consumption of alcohol stemming from an alleged sexual assault at a cabin in Gilmer County on May 11. Andrew Haynes, Fields Chapman and Damon “Avery” Johnson, all 18-year-olds, turned themselves in at the Gilmer County Jail and were each released on $51,000 bond. If convicted, the men could face 25 years to life in prison, Gilmer County Sheriff Stacy Nicholson said. Nicholson said Wednesday during a press conference on the town square that his agency did not have evidence to charge the men with...

May 28, 2014 (LifeSiteNews.com) - The cover of TIME magazine released on May 15, depicting a university pennant with the lone word “Rape” on it, marks a new height in public awareness (and debate) of what has come to be known as the “rape culture” – a prevalence of male domination, incursion, and violation against the sexual dignity and bodily sovereignty of females through physical actions, verbal harassment, mass entertainment content, structural norms in the workplace, and social behavior. First coined in the 1970s, “rape culture” has only entered the popular progressive vocabulary in recent years, starting in feminist blogs....

FULL TITLE: Depraved babysitter handed three-year-old boy in her care to sex offender who drugged and raped him while filming attacks A babysitter has been jailed for 16 years for handing a three-year-old boy to a known paedophile who drugged and raped the child as he slept. Claire Semmens, 28, gave the little boy to Aaron Hughes, a sex offender who sedated the youngster before carrying out and filming two sex attacks. Hughes, who had a previous conviction for child rape, was also jailed for life today as a judge hit out at the pair's 'horrendous' crimes. Cardiff Crown Court...

The so-called "Pillowcase Rapist"...........who attacked at least 40 women......... in the 1970s and 1980s will be freed and allowed to live in a remote Southern California desert area despite a host of vocal protests, a judge ordered Friday.

Abortion advocate Planned Parenthood is under investigation after it was revealed that one of the organization's counselors in Arizona failed to report a rape allegedly carried out by accused 18-year-old serial predator, Tyler Kost, because it was too much of a "hassle." Kost, of San Tan Valley, Arizona, was recently charged with assaulting 11 girls between the ages of 12 and 17, spanning the period from October 2009 to April 2014, according to Fox News. Authorities, however, believe that he has assaulted at least 18 students from Poston Butte High School.

A Planned Parenthood counselor in Arizona intentionally miscoded a sexual assault as a consensual encounter to avoid the “hassle” of reporting it to authorities, months before other victims came forward to stop an alleged 18-year-old serial sex predator, a police report reveals. Tyler Kost, of San Tan Valley, Ariz., has been charged with sexually assaulting 11 girls from the ages of 12 to 17 between October 2009 and April 2014, although authorities believe he has assaulted at least 18 students from Poston Butte High School. The mother of one 15-year-old victim, who became pregnant as a result of the alleged...

<p>An Indiana judge came under heavy criticism Tuesday after he ordered no prison time for a man convicted of charges related to repeatedly drugging and sexually assaulting his wife.</p> <p>On Monday, the Los Angeles Times wrote about the April conviction of David Wise, 52, of Indianapolis, on six felony charges of rape and deviate conduct that normally carry prison terms of six to 20 years apiece.</p>

FULL TITLE: Sheriff: Investigate Planned Parenthood That Didn’t Report Rape of Teen, Allowing Man to Rape 18 Other Girls A county sheriff wants state agencies to probe the Planned Parenthood abortion business and determine why it purposefully did not report the rape of a teenage girl that it saw as a customer, allowing the rapist to target other teen girls. Planned Parenthood abortion clinics have come under fire countless times over the years for not reporting cases of statutory rape to authorities as required by state law. Earlier this month, in Arizona, officials says the abortion giant failed again to...

Former “Baywatch” beauty Pamela Anderson said she was gang-raped by seven boys in high school — including her then-boyfriend — and was also subjected to sexual molestation by a babysitter between the ages of 6 and 10. Ms. Anderson, speaking during the launch of her Pamela Anderson Foundation, said she was raped, too, at the age of 12 by a 25-year-old, NBC News reported. “My first boyfriend in grade nine decided it would be funny to gang-rape me, with six of his friends,” she said, NBC reported, citing a transcript of her speech that was posted on her foundation’s website....

Rape. Decades ago, women who were raped and reported it, particularly those raped by someone outside their race or social class, were often disbelieved and shamed. That is tragic. But how far the pendulum has swung in the other direction! Now, the term “rape” or “sexual assault” is thrown around almost effortlessly, accusations easily made and lives easily ruined. First, the pendulum shift began with feminists pushing the notion that women claiming they were raped should always be believed and never questioned. Presumption of innocence, a foundation of our culture, suddenly went out the window. Consider how quickly the...

Texas Republican Rep. Lamar Smith reacted harshly to a new report detailing the crimes committed by 36,007 criminal immigrants that Immigration and Customs Enforcement released last year. “This would be considered the worst prison break in American history, except it was sanctioned by the President and perpetrated by our own immigration officials. These criminal immigrants should have been deported to ensure that they could never commit crimes on U.S. soil. But instead, ICE officials chose not to detain them and instead released them back onto American streets,” Smith said in a statement Monday.

There seems to be a full-court press on to get colleges to "do something" about rape on campus. But there seems to be remarkably little attention paid to two crucial facts: (1) rape is a crime and (2) colleges are not qualified to be law-enforcement institutions. Why are rapists not reported to the police and prosecuted in a court of law? Apparently this is because of some college women who say that they were raped and are dissatisfied with a legal system that does not automatically take their word for it against the word of someone who has been accused...

Cyrus was performing on stage at the legendary G-A-Y nightclub SNIP Introducing her friend to the crowd, she said, “You know, everyone’s a little bit gay … It’s the truth. Everyone’s gay, all it takes is one cocktail. And if that doesn’t work, sprinkle something in their drink. That’s what I always do.”

Raised by a Lutheran pastor and his wife, Ruth Lee never wanted to learn the identity of her birth parents. She had a happy childhood and never doubted the love showered upon her by her adoptive parents and three brothers. Blessed with five children herself — one more successful than the next, including NASA astronaut Mark Lee and West Point grad and Army Lt. Col. Brian Lee — her life was too full, too busy to think about her unknown past. But then, at age 77, she was plagued by a series of health issues. Her children begged her to...

Violence against women is endemic in Afghanistan with cases of “honour” killings, rape, domestic violence and forced marriage well-documented and well-known. But women and girls who have been displaced from their homes during decades of conflict seem to be even worse off, according to the latest edition of Forced Migration Review, which looks at Afghanistan's displaced people and their prospects after foreign troops withdraw this year. Displaced Afghan women are especially vulnerable to exploitation and violence because of their often reduced circumstances, according to a piece by Camille Hennion, project director at the Kabul-based Samuel Hall research group. ... A...